By Clement Odalumeh
“To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves” — Mahatma Ghandi.
The above statement of the legendary Mahatma Ghandi is a perfect “intro” to the laudable and even noble role of a farmer.
A farmer engages in farming. It is his world and his profession. It is his art and his farm is his canvass. The farm is his factory from where he produces bursts of energizing and life-sustaining goodies. His primary concern is to nourish the chief occupant of the earth, man, as he bestrides the earth.
No one understands the import of seed time and harvest time than the farmer. Farming is a show of faith as the farmer releases his seedlings to the soil and faithfully await their survival against vagaries and fury of nature, in expectation of a bountiful harvest. He waits patiently while the calm little seeds grow into giant trees. His waiting could take weeks, months, or decades, but wait he does. Farming is faith.
He is the oldest meteorologist as he could detect and tell when the rain approaches even in extreme heat.
It is surprising how a “seemingly crude and dirty profession” could yet be so detailed and meticulous. A farmer is detailed and highly meticulous even as he goes about his various exertions on the farm. While many strive to flee from the dirt and inconvenience that farming appears to be, the real farmer embraces them like a scientist who never shirks away from the unpleasantness in the laboratory.
He knows virtually every blade of grass, and every head of grains, on his farm. I can still recall with fond memories, those impressionable years in my rocky village of Iyuku- the land of my birth, where I had the privilege of going to the farm with my maternal grandparents. I had marveled how my maternal grand father of blessed memory, Alhaji Saliu Oshiafi, would talk about virtually every tree on his expanse farm at Okemotse, in manners suggestive of some animate personality, as he trimmed them to bring them to shape and to meet the need of the farm. He would embrace the early morning dew that adorned the grasses on the road to the farm as he would checked on his traps and could tell from steps away if any animal had been caught, even as we hurried along to catch up with his pace. Even as farmers of the older order, their farming art was deep and impressive. My maternal grand mother of blessed memory, Madam Sametu Oshiafi, would weed away with so much concentration despite the intermittent checks on others around, while she removed the grasses from their mix with the plants, with methodic precision. There was no drudgery. Oh dear farming!
A farmer is a keeper of the earth. No one cares about our survival as much as the farmer. Our first drug is food. It is sustaining, preventive and curative. The choicest wines and the most sumptuous meals all come from the farmers’ fields, because they all have their crucibles in the form of vegetables, fruits, grains or cereal.
If you love yourself, then you must love the earth. If you love the earth, then you must love the farmers.
I love the earth.
(Odalumeh, Esquire, an Attorney-at-Law, writes from Lagos.)
